The recent mindset by Democrats and Republicans, alike, on
Trade With China.

I for well over a decade, I've taken serious issue with how the
Chinese have treated the Tibetans, their own citizens, the
Taiwanese and now I'm concerned about their 'interests' in Hong
Kong.

All of a sudden, the Reps and Dems have morphed further into
ONE party in their shared
belief that China will get accepted into the WTO and, if we don't
trade with them,
WE'LL be the ones left out in the cold. All under the guise of,
"...hey, we can't influence
change, if we pretend they don't exist!" while extolling the virtues
of the Chinese working in American businesses (presumably in
China) and how that will inspire them to run home to tell their
neighbors about their great 'pay' and 'benefits' and THAT is what
will change China....the Chinese, not pressure from the US.

Is this a cop out?
Is this an excuse to use the cheap labor of China?
Will US farmers really benefit somehow?

I've been dead set against giving China Most Favored Nation
status for years now, thinking
we'll teach them a thing, or two, but nothing's getting any better
over there.

Maybe I shouldn't be mixing Trade with Human Rights?
But, how else can we 'get' to them, if not through their
pocketbooks?

Answers

The way I understand it is by distinguishing bween the Chinese
*government* and the Chinese *people*.

The Chinese government is pretty awful--not nearly as awful as it
was a generation ago during the Great Leap Forward and the
Cultural Revolution, but still pretty awful. The question is how to
change it. And the hope is that free trade and other steps to
make economic, cultural, and social contact between China and
the rest of the world as close as possible will in the long run--fifty
years or more--teach China's people what they are missing, and
give them the ideas and the power they need to change their
government.

So far no dictatorship (save Singapore) has survived when a
country's people have become rich enough that almost everyone
is literate, everyone has a radio or TV, and more than half the
people have cars. South Korea and Taiwan are the most recent
indications that this strategy works: that political democracy
follows economic prosperity and close contact with the rest of
the world.

Of course, this is a long-run strategy. And in the meantime the
government remains awful--and faster economic growth gives
the government more power to exert its will over other,
neighboring countries.

And, of course, this strategy is not certain to succeed. But, as
Laura Tyson puts it, in the long run the attitude of the Chinese
people toward Americans will be much better if we try to make
them democratic by making them rich than if we try to keep their
government from being a threat by keeping them poor...